22nd century star clipper...

I'm taking a little break from shuttlecraft to try my hand at a design I conjured up about fifteen or so years ago. It's my idea of a mid to late 22nd century starship or what I call a Hercules-class star clipper. This design is meant to be an adaptable platform for a number of variants configured for distinctly different mission profiles.

I think I remember some of your 2d images of this ship. My recommendation would be to not tie yourself too closely to the design you came up with then based on the limitations you were working under with that old software.

I think I remember some of your 2d images of this ship. My recommendation would be to not tie yourself too closely to the design you came up with then based on the limitations you were working under with that old software.

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The original design was drawn by hand and I already plan to make some changes although those are mostly in terms of detail. I still quite like the essential concept.

Making some decent progress here. I'm not going to slavishly follow my original drawings except for the overall major components in terms of general shape and proportions. I'm going to depart mostly in terms of detailing.

This is the essential design. Now it's a matter of detailing and colour and all the rest.

I'm still trying to flesh out the backstory for this puppy. I will say that if I had seen something more like this, more rudimentary, in ENT I might have found it more convincing. The general idea here is that it's meant to be one of the first ships with a saucer configuration and successful. Variants of the design have been in operation since its introduction and variants of it continue in service presently. The 23rd century destroyers and scouts could owe their existence to these ships proving a single nacelle configuration viable.

Well, the "clippers" at sea were known for their speed, so maybe something along those lines? Perhaps this new configuration allowed for better (Insert warpy fluxy field technobabble here) (), and broke the "Warp 3 threshold", etc.?

(Since NX-01 broke the Warp 5 barrier, IIRC from ENT, and it had a saucer, that's why I came up with the "Warp 3 threshold".)

Well, the "clippers" at sea were known for their speed, so maybe something along those lines? Perhaps this new configuration allowed for better (Insert warpy fluxy field technobabble here) (), and broke the "Warp 3 threshold", etc.?

(Since NX-01 broke the Warp 5 barrier, IIRC from ENT, and it had a saucer, that's why I came up with the "Warp 3 threshold".)

Cheers & TGIF,
-CM-

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Well in my continuity ENT doesn't exist anyway, but about Warp 3 is what I was thinking.

That spar on the nacelle dome is actually part of the nav deflector as is the dome itself, The space warp engine is most of the rest of the cylinder behind that. At least that's how I initially conceived it but, of course, I can change my mind.

My original concept was that the basic design served as a platform for different variants and I think I'd like to explore that a bit more by modelling some of them: sentry, science survey, transport and medical support.

^^ Initially I thought it looked rather interesting. But now that I consider that the landing craft bay doors slide forward (to open) under that section I'm figuring it is part of the landing bay facilities.

My overall thinking in terms of Trek history and technology also doesn't follow the "official" version.

In 2018 Earth develops the impulse drive or some form thereof which allows for fast relativistic starflight and to break free of the solar system. This allows velocities in excess of .9c. Around the 2060s Cochrane develops his space warp superimpellor. It's a bit vague on whether he developed simply the mathematics and formula or an actual working drive system, but more than 150 years later he does recognize Spock as a Vulcan so evidently Cochrane's development results in actual warp driven starcraft within his lifetime (I don't buy FC's assertion that Vulcans basically rescued us and helped raise us out from being a bombed out civilization).

From Cochrane's development onward the space warp formula is basically the familiar one cited in The Making Of Star Trek: speed = WF cubed x the speed of light. And this formula stands until about the mid 2240s when Richard Daystrom's duotronic systems revolutionize computer technology particularly in terms of propulsion, navigation and guidance as well as the development of viable teleportation systems. Daystrom's systems are now sufficiently fast enough for the computational and processing speeds required for such real advancements. It's the leap forward, the genuine dividing line between the "primitive" technology cited by Spock in "Balance Of Terror" and the current TOS era. It also gels with Jose Tyler's reference in "The Cage:" "You won't believe how fast you can get back (to Earth). Our new ships can..." There is a subtext throughout TOS that not too long prior to the Pike era interstellar starlight was rather more rudimentary than what we see in the TOS era. My idea is that in the "modern" era the warp flight formula is WF cubed x .02 = light years per hour. This redefining of the warp formula now really allows for the velocities and transit times referenced in throughout TOS.

There is another subtext throughout TOS that the Federation also isn't that old---perhaps only decades and not a century as cited in TNG and the rest.

This is how the design currently stands.

I'm thinking of building two variants of my 22nd century clipper: the exploratory ship seen above and the transport variant. I actually envisioned the Woden seen in "The Ultimate Computer" as being one of these old transports converted to automation.

The detail work is going a bit slowly as I think it through. I want to add detail that enhances the design with interesting visual texture and yet I don't want to overdo it because I want the ship to look like it could belong in the TOS universe.

A bit more incremental progress. It's now matter of sweating the surface details. In the process I sometimes try things that don't work out, but that process often leads to getting a better idea of what does work.

In the process I sometimes try things that don't work out, but that process often leads to getting a better idea of what does work.

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Oh, I know that trial & error method very well. What you have in your mind at the start almost never looks the same once it's down on paper (or up on the computer screen), does it?

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Usually my overall concept is pretty much right, but the devil is in massaging the details.

For inspiration I look to all sorts of things: walking through a hardware store or looking through a home workshop or garage, perusing magazines and books and book covers, diverse aircraft and ships and cars and trains and all manner of vehicles real and fictional, the most innocuous objects. It might be found anywhere where you see a shape or pattern in something that just happens to turn a light on in your imagination.